How much do private coaches help the student?

prodesse
Thu, 24 Jan 2013 20:58:46 +0000

Professional actors have coaches too.

Obviously a lot depends on the coach. My son’s acting coach had been his director in a couple of plays (small professional theatre), so we already knew they worked well together. His coach helped my son select monologues – he is very knowledgeable – but didn’t say, “Do this one,” but rather, brought a bunch to his attention to try and select from, insisting, by the way, that if he chose a monologue from a particular play, he had to read the entire play. His coach helped him learn how to craft a monologue from dialogue in a play that doesn’t have any monologues. My son also learned a lot about how the various plays fit into the history of theatre and western culture. They worked on “beats” which my son understands though I do not, and it was a matter of “Take this home and work on finding the beats,” rather than being told where they are. They worked on some improv techniques, some cold reading techniques, and other general audition strategies. Most of all, the coach provided encouragement and inspired confidence.

Oh, and gave us great advice about what are the best college programs and why or why not. And made very sure my son understands that actors need to have theatre tech skills as well as acting skills.

It’s been a good thing. I don’t know how we’d have gone about finding a coach from scratch, though. There are ones who are very much self-promoters, who do not seem to be the best coaches.